Dual Pentium Pro

[wazootyman]

I'm looking to set up a server for some LAN gaming, and was thinking that a dual Pentium Pro 200 setup would do the job. I'm looking for something easy and cheap, and something that can make use of my AT case - so it seems like this would be an overall good upgrade. I also realize that most game server apps are not multi-threaded, but I figure while I'm making the upgrade, I might as well get the dual processor system. The box is currently running NT 4.0...

My questions:

1. What advantage does the Pentium Pro have over the regular Pentium? I know it's supposed to be good for servers, but haven't seen much other info on it.

2. I've always heard that the more cache a CPU has, the better, but in the case of this chip, what would be the advantage of paying for 512K instead of 256K?

3. Any ideas on where to buy this old hardware? I've been looking at e-Bay, but finding a dual board is *very* hard. Looking around, I particularily like the Tyan S1662, but nobody sells those anymore.

4. Do all boards require special power suppliers and regulator modules?

Thanks,

Matt

 

[Oyeve]

Other than a few instruction sets difference from pentium classic, and the on die cache, it is about 15 percent faster the the fastest pentium MMX classic (233mmx).

 

[Workin']

I bet you could set up a brand-spanking new dual Celeron or slower dual PIII for what you will pay for the PPro setup. Or maybe just a little more expensive.

You'll have to shop hard but I think that is a better route to take.

 

[wazootyman]

I guess I should add that I already have 128 MB of EDO RAM too... It'd be great to use all of this old stuff and put together a semi-decent game server. I'd really prefer to have this whole upgrade cost less than like $75...

 

[Workin']

From what I've seen you can't even get a single 256k 200 MHz Pentium Pro processor for $75, let alone 2 of them plus a motherboard.

You could probably sell the 128 MB of EDO SIMMS for nearly $300 - I did a quick look and 32 MB EDO SIMMS are about $75 right now - and combine that with your $75, and voila', new dual Celeron in the house.

That's a little more work, but I think dual Celly 650's or dual PIII 500's would surely outperform dual PPro 200's.

 

[Oyeve]

EDO memory is worth that much? Geez! I have about 200 stick of various size EDO memory!

 

[Noriaki]

EDO is worht alot Oyeve....just have to find a buyer.

The dual cellies or p3s would be a better option I think.
Though the newer celeron2s are not SMP capable.

 

[pcmark]

I have a dual P-Pro 200 game server with 192mb ram at work next to my desk It serves up Unreal Tournament quite nicely. I even play on it and it's pretty smooth. I threw a TNT2 pci card in it.

 

[jpprod]

1. What advantage does the Pentium Pro have over the regular Pentium? I know it's supposed to be good for servers, but haven't seen much other info on it.

Pentium Pro is the first CPU to be based off P6 microarchitecture, the basic core is the same in it as in Pentium II and Pentium III CPUs. Pentium Pro handily beats regular Pentium in floating point (FPU's nearly twice as fast) and memory instensive (full-speed L2 cache on backside bus) operations. 32bit protected mode integer performance of the Pro is also better thanks to it's out-of-order, superscalar nature (Pentium = in-order, less execution units).

 

[wazootyman]

Another question - Would 64 meg of RAM be good enough to run, for example, a counterstrike server? Pentium Pro boards (especially the PR440FX) take EDO RAM, and I've got 8 16 meg chips, but the board only takes 4, so 64 meg would be my maximum amount. EDO RAM is too expensive to buy more right now anyways...